THE TANDY 600 FAQ - VERSION 3.0.5

Publishing
Date: May 26, 2008

Note: This document is long to begin with and will
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Welcome to
the Tandy 600 FAQ, a repository of facts, answers, and hypothesis for the
portable Radio Shack computer that has touched so few lives. Maybe even yours!
If you've got Tandy 600 questions; the FAQ might have
answers! :)

This FAQ
has been created by researching manuals, articles, newsgroup postings, prior
FAQs, personal experiences of users, and the like from what are believed to be
reliable sources. There is a chance
that what is presented may NOT actually be true or reliable and will actually
may be harmful to your system, data, and yourself. Use of the contents of this FAQ is at your own risk and peril!

And don't
open up your Tandy 600's case unless you know what you're doing!!

The Tandy
600 was the last laptop in the Radio Shack / Tandy computer family that was not
based on MS-DOS. Introduced on October
28, 1985, according to Portable 100, it was designed to extend the features of
the laptop line blazed by the TRS-80 Model 100 and Tandy 200 laptops. Building upon what the Tandy 200 was to the
Model 100, it sported a larger screen, more powerful built in programs, and
more contiguous RAM. The Tandy 600 went
even farther with a built-in disk drive. Unfortunately, this all came with a hefty price tag ($1599 - $2528.85
depending on configuration,) increased size (13” x 12” x 2 ¾”,) and amplified
weight (9.5 - 11 pounds with AC adapter.) When compared with the TRS-80 Model 100 (soon to be the Tandy 102) and
Tandy 200, critics derided the 600 as more expensive, quite heavier, and
seriously lacking in third party support. When MS-DOS laptops finally appeared in the Tandy line, the curtain
closed forever on the Tandy 600 show.

The 600
resembles a conventional laptop - or a ‘jumbo’ Tandy 200 - not the ‘slab’ form
of the TRS-80 Model 100. It has a
flip-up 80x16 LCD screen, a fine keyboard with an embedded numeric keypad, a
built-in 300 bps modem, parallel port, reset button, display control, floppy
disk expansion port, and a RS-232 serial port.

The stock
600 shipped with 32K of RAM and 160K of ROM. Up to two additional 96K RAM modules could be installed, providing a
maximum of 224K of contiguous memory space. (This is different from the 100/102/200 where the memory is looked at in
24K or 32K chunks.) Like the other
Tandy laptops of the time, the 600 used its ROM to hold the major programs it
came with and RAM to store both files and other programs. The built-in 3.5" floppy disk drive
provided additional file storage. Most
power 600 users agree that without at least one extra RAM module, the 600 is
rather short on free memory space; but, the onboard disk drive helps with that
problem. So long as you are typing
notes and not working on monster spreadsheets, 32K will be cramped but usable.

The 600 ran
on an internal nickel-cadmium (NiCad) battery pack, which was a set of four
high-capacity D cells, or an external AC power supply and charger. Depending on the amount of disk, serial, and
modem port usage, one could get between 6 to 11 hours of computing time between
14 hour recharges. Unfortunately, NiCad
batteries available at the time were known to have ‘memory’ problems and will
need to be replaced.

The Tandy 600 was not made in the U.S.A. by Radio Shack
but sold by them under license from a manufacturer in Japan. Who the
original manufacturer of the 600 is is not known for certain. The
Programmers Reference Guide mentions that the ROMs contained code licensed from
Microsoft for the 16-bit Hand Held Operating System (HHDOS). However, the
BIOS of the computer was licensed through OKI Electric Industry Company, LTD.
Maybe OKI made the 600, maybe not. It's hard to say.

The Tandy
600 operates under the 16-bit Hand Held Operating System, or Handheld DOS or
HHDOS, from Microsoft. Available when the system first powers up, the major applications
that the 600 uses are contained in ROM all written by Microsoft.

System
Manager: Manages all Tandy 600 files,
both data and application, displayed in RAM or on disk. Handles file operation such as copying,
deleting, listing, and renaming. Sets
all system parameters. Allows the user
to choose which application to use at any one time.

Calendar: An appointment and task scheduler that can
remind you of important events, print out your itinerary, and chime alarms when
appropriate.

File: A customizable database application with
sorting, formatting, and searching. The
Tandy 600 BASIC was able to read and write to database files.

Telcom: Allows the Tandy 600 to communicate through
its built in modem or direct connection with other computers either as either a
host or a client with Xmodem file transfer protocol. Can be used as an auto dialer as well.

Multiplan: A spreadsheet program that stores, displays,
prints, and performs mathematical operations on numerical data in rows and
columns.

The 600’s
versions of Word, Calendar, File, Telecom, and Multiplan are part of Microsoft
Works v1.20 for Handheld DOS. Depending
on its type and format, data can be transferred between Multiplan, File,
Calendar, and Word. Conspicuous by its
absence is BASIC. Tandy provided an
optional BASIC for $129.95 on a snap-in ROM chip. Only the Multiplan or BASIC ROMs can be installed at any one
time.

FORMAT.!60: Used to format diskettes.
DISKCOPY.!90: Used to copy diskettes.
PRINTER.DRV: A printer driver.
DBCALLS.LIB: A set of 28 addition al BASIC commands to
manipulate database records created with File.
INSTALL.!70: Installs machine language routines.
UTILITY.LIB: More goodies for BASIC.

Actually
this section could be entitled “Infrequently Asked Questions” for the Tandy 600
really is about as abandoned a platform as you could find today. But if you’re here, you’ve got questions;
you just might find answers.

At the time of it's introduction, Stewart
Weinstock, Radio Shack's corporate buyer for the Tandy 600, said that Tandy had
no plans to introduce an external drive or develop disk based or ROM based
software other than BASIC on ROM. Tandy looked to third parties to address
user needs. (80 Micro, February 1986, page 22.) The Radio
Shack computer catalogs 16 - 19 list the following items available for the
Tandy 600:

Catalog
Number

Item

Price

26-3901

Tandy
600 Computer

$1599.00

26-3904

BASIC ROM

$129.95

26-3905

Carrying Case

$59.95

26-3910

96K
RAM Board

$399.95

26-3812

Legs

$3.99

Tandy also published two reference guides for the Tandy
600. The first is the 197 page long Programmers Reference Guide for the
BIOS and BIOS Specification. This guide makes reference to a MS-Works
Utilities Disk for applications development on the 600. All one had to do
was send a blank disk to Tandy and they would send back the files. The
second guide was the Service Manual for the 600. At 304 pages thick, this
manual gave the technician in the field all he needed to know to troubleshoot
the 600. Both of these manuals are long out of stock and print and nearly
impossible to find!

The Tandy
600 first appeared in a full page add in the 1986 Radio Shack Software
Reference and Tandy Computer Guide, RSC-16, page 77. The carrying case did not appear in that catalog; instead, it
debuted in RSC-17 in 1987.

By the time
of RSC-17 and RSC-17B, the add size was reduced to half a page. The specifications in RSC-17 erroneously
listed a cassette tape interface capable of loading at 1500 baud and a standard
bar-code interface. They were corrected
in RSC-17B.

The 1987
Radio Shack Software Reference Guide, RSC-18, listed exactly one software
program out of 600 plus for other Tandy computers, and it was Tandy's BASIC ROM
for the 600.

When RSC-19
was released in 1987, the writing was on the wall for the Tandy 600. It was down to a quarter page add and
$999.00 and was surely on Radio Shack's "Sold Out When Gone", a.k.a. SOWG, list by then. RSC-19 also
launched the Tandy 1400 LT, Radio Shack's first MS-DOS laptop. The last known confirmed price for the 600
is $599.00 and appears in the letters column of Portable 100, March 1988. However, Radio Shack would continue to drop
the price of an SOWG item about every two months to coincide with their
inventory cycle. It is quite possible that
some 600 computers sold for much, much less than $599 in the waning days of 1988.

By the way,
RSC-19 marked the end of the line for many Radio Shack / Tandy proprietary,
non-MSDOS computers. By the time RSC-20
came out, the Tandy 6000, Tandy 200, Disk Video Interface for the Radio
Shack and Tandy 200 / 102 / 100, and PC-8, all met the same fate as the Tandy
600. The Tandy 102 - the reincarnation
of the 1984 Radio Shack Model 100 with its bugs fixed and a much cheaper
production cost - survived all the way through to the last released Tandy
computer catalog in 1992, RSC-23, where it was still listed with 32K for an
unbelievable $599.00.

While the
600 was introduced on October 28, 1985, it was probably in Tandy’s hands way
before that.

As of this
time, all we have is speculation about when Tandy actually started to fancy the
Tandy 600 - which may have been late 1984 - and it comes from a very
interesting source. If you were to look
at the Tandy 200 Owner's, Multiplan, or Telecom manual cover, you will see a
picture of a woman sitting in an airport concourse typing on a Tandy 200. Now look at the Tandy 600 manual cover.
That is the same woman, the same concourse,
and the same plane. Given her body and
hand positions are changed and the hopeless state of tools to manipulate photographs
digitally and realistically in 1985, it is very reasonable to conclude that the
Tandy 200 and 600 were kicking around the labs - or at least the advertising
department - at the same time. (You
will also note that the Tandy 2000 is pictured running the same
telecommunications program on each manual, too.) If you look closely at the 600 in the pictures, the label of the
computer is missing; so, Tandy had yet to decide on a name for the 600. If you look really closely in the picture of
the 600 with the 200, you'll see that the 600 is running Telcom so at least it
was somewhat functional even if the label wasn’t.

The Tandy
600 also has a manufactured date and serial number on the bottom. The one the author has says October 1985,
serial number 51012271. There certainly
weren't millions of these units made, so the last 5 digits of the serial number
are probably the most significant. Also interesting, the upper part of the
case will have die settings of the year, month, and date the case was
cast. Easy to read, hard to get to.

The number
one reason has to be poor sales; Tandy is in the business of making money after
all and not building a fandom. And you can’t fault them for
dropping a poor performer! But there
are several reasons postulated by many critics, pundits, and owners as to why the Tandy 600 was such a poor
performer; and some of them clearly exist directly because of decisions made at One Tandy
Center:

Scant Third
Party support.

User manual
was contained errors and not generally user-friendly.

The rise of
MS-DOS laptops.

The tariff
on 16-bit computer imports. (The Tandy
600 was made in Japan.)

A difficult
to read screen with the bizarre layout of 80 columns by 16 lines.

Lack of
BASIC.

Released
with a scant 32K of memory out of the box.

No carrying handle.

To their
credit, Radio Shack did stock replacement parts for the 600 for several years
after it's demise. Batteries and BASIC
ROM chips might still be available. Contact your local Radio Shack and have them call National Parts for
you. They'll need the catalog number
for the 600, which is 26-3901.

Depending
on whom you read and believe, the manufacturing run of the Tandy 600 is
reported to be about 25,000 units. (There were at least 12,271 of them according to the serial number on
the author's 600 if the last 5 digits of the serial number are significant and
started at 00001.) How many were sold
is a bit of a mystery. Every Radio
Shack store got at least one, so that's at least 4000 or so. At any
rate, they will be a rare find today.

There are
two batteries inside the Tandy 600. One
is the main battery that operates the computer and all its built in peripherals
when you press the Power button. The
second is a little battery that maintains the RAM when the computer is
off. Both of these batteries are
rechargeable, and both will eventually need to be replaced. Attaching the computer to the AC adapter for
14 hours recharges the main battery. The memory battery probably recharges as long as the AC is
attached. (The manual doesn’t say.)

You know
the main battery is dead when the computer won’t hold a charge anymore. You know the memory battery is dead when you
disconnect the AC, have the Memory Power switch on the bottom on, wait a few
hours, connect the AC, and have to cold start the 600 because the memory has
been wiped.

Carefully! :) The battery is located inside the case, obviously.
It’s four ‘high capacity’ D cells. If you’re very lucky, they haven’t corroded
the works and you can just replace them. (If you’re unlucky, you have some work ahead of you.)
Download and review the text files
600BAT.THD from the Tandy 600 Software Archive.

You might
still be able to order replacement batteries from Radio Shack or other
suppliers. Check with your favorite
Internet search engine.

Even more
carefully than the main battery! :) This battery is located
inside the case and mounted on the motherboard. You will need to be comfortable with soldering to replace this
battery. Don’t do it if you are
uncomfortable with it as you might zap the motherboard and that will be the end
of your 600; take it to a computer repair shop and have it replaced.

After
you've tried the obvious such as: making sure you're connected to the
RS-232C port, changing the cable, testing the cable, making sure
you're using the proper cable (null modem to connect two computers or pass
through to connect to a modem) and ‘cold starting,’ what you might be
experiencing is a problem with the serial port hardware. Download and review the text file COMFIX.THD
from the Tandy 600 Software Archive.

Press
CTRL-F10 to return to the System Manager. Another interesting little feature is that you can also press CTRL-F9 to
switch to the last application you were just in. In BASIC, you have the option to type SYSTEM or QUIT to get back
to the System Manager.

Why
not? Because, they are saved in what is
now an incompatible Word file format. While there used to be versions of Word out there that read and
translated Word documents between the 600 and MS-DOS machines, they are all
gone now. It’s often called
“Progress.” :)

What you
have to do is print the document in on your 600 to an ASCII text file. Then, you can upload that document to your
computer using Telcom. You can then use
Word, Notepad, or just about any other ASCII text reader to open them.

From
accounts on the web, the Heath Zenith ZP-150, a.k.a. Zenith ZP-150, is a
something of a second cousin of the Tandy 600. It lacks a
disk drive but starts with 128K of memory expandable to 416K, a bigger screen
though the same resolution of 80 characters x 16 lines, runs on 10 AA batteries,
has ROM cartridges (but of a different shape from the 600,) and has the same
HHDOS and Microsoft Works user interface, though the version of Works is 1.10
rather than the 1.20 the Tandy 600 has. There may have been a docking station for it that had a disk drive as
well as port replicators. It also had
the misfortune of disappointing sales. More information and cool color
pictures of the ZP-150 can be found at
http://www.suddenlink.net/pages/curtismc/zp_t.html.
(Thanks to Curtis McCain for the info and the excellent job on his ZP-150 /
Tandy 600 pages!)

Interestingly
enough, the Tandy 600 was designed to support a second, external, single-sided, double-density disk
drive though Tandy never released one. (80 Micro, February 1986, page 22.) You can use a double-sided
drive; the 600 will only use one side. You will need one that is 720K either 3.5” or 5.25”.
(The Tandy 2000 sported a 5.25” 720K drive,
by the way. Handy.) The connection is made through the FDD port
on the back of the 600. Download and
review the text file DSKADD.THD from the Tandy 600 Software Archive.

There were
three sources of RAM for the Tandy 600: Radio Shack, Purple Computing, and American
Cryptronics. Now the only source of RAM for the Tandy 600
is other Tandy 600s that happen to have 96K RAM modules in them. Check www.ebay.com for Tandy 600s.

You may not
place the 32K memory from one 600 into an open bank of another 600, the sockets
are significantly different; plus, the 32K board has the LCD circuitry on it.

What you
are looking at is the 600’s 160K worth of ROM programs. Four of them are in sockets and one is in a
Molex carrier. The 600 came standard
with Multiplan in the Molex carrier; BASIC was an optional program available on
ROM. The other four chips are ROMs that
contain the system software and the other programs.

While it is
temping, don’t take out any of those four chips in the sockets just to find out
what happens. What happens is bad. Don’t ever do it!!

Save all of
your work on the 600 to disk. Turn the
system off. Close it up. Turn it over. On the bottom of the Tandy 600, there is a little removable cover
that just snaps in and out. Position
the Tandy 600 so that the cover is closest to you on your left. Remove the plate and you will see five ROM
chips. The first four ROM chips are in
sockets. The fifth ROM chip on the far
right of the compartment contains Multiplan in a Molex carrier. There are little plastic tongues on the
sides of the chip so that you can gently rock and lift the chip out of the
carrier. (When you get it out, you’ll
note that the carrier is keyed to only go in one way.) Reverse the process to put in the 600’s
BASIC chip, which is also in a Molex carrier.

When you
turn on the 600, you will see BASIC instead of PLAN in the Application Area of
the System Manager. Arrow down to it
and press Enter to activate BASIC, just as you would activate any other 600
program.

If you have
a 96K RAM expansion, you can use the COPY command to save BASIC to a disk,
replace the BASIC chip with the Multiplan chip, and copy BASIC back into RAM
from the disk. This allows you to use
the full power of the 600 and eliminates the need to swap chips. (This CANNOT be accomplished on a 32K 600;
not enough free memory.)

While there
used to be a tiny smattering of third-party and Radio Shack support left in
1989, it's all gone now. Computers, 96K
memory boards, telephone cables, cases, batteries, and so on. Welcome to "the sunset of
computing," so to say. But there
is hope! Eventually, just about
everything shows up at eBay, www.ebay.com, even a few Tandy 600s! Hamfests are also good places to look for
ancient hardware like this. Just keep in mind that because the 600 is
fairly rare, you'll have to look hard and often. The base model Tandy 600
often sells for around $50. You can expect to pay about $50 for each 96K
memory module.

Being
already equipped with a word processor, database, telecommunications, and
spreadsheet software and hobbled with 32K of user memory, the commercial market
for Tandy 600 software was thin. Very
thin. (Remember, 96K more memory was an
incredible $399.95!) So much so, in
fact, that only one commercial product is known to physically exist, Radio
Shack's BASIC ROM for the Tandy 600 at $129.95.

At this
date, no physical record has been found of any Tandy 600 software that wasn't
user created using BASIC; although there is some anecdotal evidence that Club
600, a.k.a. Easyware Products, may have published some commercial
software: Monitor 600 and SpellCheck
600.

Dennis
Rogers ran Easyware Products of Houston, Texas. It operated a subscription BBS, published a newsletter for 600
users, and sold software for the 600. Club 600 is long gone. Any
donations of Club 600 items and the items of any other Tandy 600 software or
hardware manufacturers for the further development of this FAQ are welcome.

The
original, original FAQ is HELP.600, published September 19, 1989 by an unknown
author. It is available for download
and review as the text file HELP.600 from the Tandy 600 Software Archive.

The second
original FAQ was created and published by Larry Kollar. It's last known published date to
comp.sys.tandy is 12/02/1996. The links
to it on the web have long been disabled.

The third
version of the FAQ is what you are now reading. Thomas McLaren of DigitalDinos,
www.digitaldinos.com, compiled,
wrote, and edited it. It is a
compilation of the first two with errors corrected, outdated information
removed, and expanded topics from research and personal experiences. He is looking for corrections, submissions,
and contributions from the Tandy 600 users. He can be reached at DigitalDinos,
www.digitaldinos.com.

The Tandy
600 sports a 300 baud, direct connect modem controlled directly through Telcom. It is not Hayes
compatible. (Or at least from the
manual, it doesn’t appear to be.) TELCOM supports Xmodem out of the box, so that's one less thing to worry
about.

It seems
that no matter what you set the baud rate for in Telcom, it always tops out at
about 600 baud. And it isn't a problem
that has to do with redrawing the screen as Xmodem transfers that don't update
the screen crawl along at 600 baud as well. There is some thought in the collective messages out there that the most
likely cause is that the BIOS calls are poorly written. Other than that explanation and acceptance,
there isn't a fix for this problem.

The Tandy
600 is not a Big Brother to the 100 / 102 / 200 in any way other than Radio
Shack sold them all. They are at best
second cousins. :) So, machine language programs from one will
not run on the other.

A closer
relative to the 600 is purportedly the Heath Zenith ZP-150. But without one to actually test, it's just
a hypothesis.

Not without
serious modifications. Quite different
screen sizes, syntax, commands, and so on will make the conversion quite a
challenge. However, a few of the
programs in the Tandy 600 Software Archive are ports of Tandy / TRS-80 Model
100 / 102 / 200 programs.

Microsoft
was a language powerhouse before it became a operating system giant. The Tandy 600 BASIC was written by Microsoft
and is very close to GW-BASIC. (Those
Microsoft guys!) But modifications will
have to be made to the code by a programmer to adjust to the 600’s
specifications of screen size and shortcomings of the 600’s BASIC
implementation. Some of the programs in the Tandy 600 Software Archive are
ports of GW-BASIC programs.

The
consensus right now is, "No." The Tandy 600 shares some things in common with MS-DOS PCs of the era, a
CMOS version of the 8088 chip for example. And we also know that HHOS is a Microsoft product.
And the development environment for HHOS
runs on MS-DOS PCs. But, how it all
comes together and works is still a mystery. Someone with enough time and dedication could figure out and document
the definitive answer, though. Maybe,
you? :)

Well, sort
of. The development environment for
Hand Held DOS is available at the Tandy 600 Software Archive under the
directory HHOS. Working in this environment,
you should be able to create machine language programs. (You'll probably need a 600 to supply ROM
images.) Let us know if you figure out
how to run it; it would make a very good addition to the FAQ. :)

First, get an 8088 assembler for your desktop computer.
Then locate a copy of the Tandy 600 Programmers Reference Guide for the BIOS and BIOS
Specification. The information is there, but you
may need to dig for what you want. Crashes will probably wipe out your RAM files, so backup early and
often.

The maximum
size is 62533 bytes, approximately 64K and some overhead free. This is true even if you have 96K RAM boards
installed. If you need more room for
your BASIC masterpiece, split the program into several pieces and call them
using "RUN filename."

If you test and attach a power supply and the Tandy 600
does not power up, it is possible that you have a blown fuse on the
motherboard. Take the computer apart and you will find the fuse next to
the battery and keyboard connections.

Portable
100 (a.k.a. Portable 100/200, a.k.a. Portable 100/200/600, a.k.a. Terry
Kepner's Portable 100) covered the Tandy laptop market from September 1983
until November 1992. The magazine's
bread and butter were articles about the Model 100 and 102. However, there were a few articles, letters,
and tips about the Tandy 600 here and there. They covered the 600's introduction with a 600 on the cover and a long
story, "Tandy Takes the High Road." The 600 was also featured on the June 1986 cover.
The articles are listed in date order with
the blurb summary from the magazine:

"Tandy
Takes the High Road," J.D. Hildebrand, Portable 100, December 1985, Pages: 19 - 20, 23 - 24, and 27.
They already have the largest selling
personal portable; now Tandy is taking on the business market with the Tandy
600. It comes with a powerful word
processor, spreadsheet, file manager, and more. It may be what users need, but is it what they want?

"BASIC
and the Tandy 600," Carl Oppedahl, Portable 100, July 1986, Pages: 37 - 43, and 57. Contributing editor Carl Oppedahl put the 600's BASIC ROM to the
test and found some good and bad points and some solutions.

"ROM
with a View: The M Word," Roger
Strukhoff, Portable 100, October 1987, Page 3. The
editor notes the rise of the MS-DOS notebook and official demise of Tandy's
"unfortunate choice" - his words - in notebooks, the Tandy 600.

"Inside
the Tandy 600, Part 1 of 3," Stevie A. Stark, Portable 100, December 1989, Pages: 17-18.
A guide to the insides of the Tandy 600.

"Inside
the Tandy 600, Part 2 of 3," Stevie A. Stark, Portable 100, January 1990, Pages: 18-20.
A guide to the insides of the Tandy 600 and other computers.

"Inside
the Tandy 600, Part 3 of 3," Stevie A. Stark, Portable 100, February 1990, Pages: 18-20.
A guide to the insides of the Tandy 600 and other computers.

As of the
time of this document, all of these magazines were hosted at Club 100, www.club100.org, the Model 100 Users Group web site.

80 Micro mentions the 600 in a few articles. The
news item in the Pulse Train column, November 1985, page 21, refers to a kludgy
portable project that died, which is the 600. Surprise, surprise! In
the February 1986 column, there's plenty to say about the newly introduced Tandy
600, though not all of it nice just truthful. 80 Micro's review of the Tandy 600
is in the March 1986
edition on pages 27 and 28 entitled "Tandy's Model 600: You Can Take
It with You." They gave the system 3.5 out of 5 stars.

The book "Collectible Microcomputers" by Michael
Nadeau lists the Tandy 600 on page 140. The description of the machine is
correct. However, he incorrectly states that one of the important
expansion options is a Disk / Video interface. There was no such piece of
equipment for this computer through Radio Shack or a third party.

"The Power User's Laptop", Answers, Pages: 8 - 9.
Basically an ad for how great the Tandy 600 is. Answers magazine was
published by Tandy.

The New York Times covered the introduction of the Tandy
600 in a November 5, 1985
article by Peter H. Lewis. He noted that the 600 addressed a number of
shortcomings of the Model 100 such as memory, disk drive, and small screen.
But the introductory price of $1599 as well as a charging a "breathtaking $400 a
pop" (his words) for 96K would cause potential buyers to ponder if they really
need a 600 because, "desktop computers with equal or greater capabilities are
available in roughly the same price range."

Try turning the DISP wheel to adjust the
contrast of the screen. If all the LCD pixels are active, you may be
experiencing a lockup, which could be quite bad. See Cold Starts, Normal
Starts, Warm Starts, and Resets, Oh My!.

The
following are tips gathered by Tandy 600 users. While some of them aren't relevant today, like how to logon to
CompuServe using an 8-bit connection, they all have historical and research
value, which is why they are collected here. Whenever possible, the author is credited for the work.

The contact
information for all the authors is really, REALLY old. Do not attempt to contact them unless
specifically indicated.

When you
startup the Tandy 600 for the first time, you will want to follow this
sequence:

Turn the
Memory Power switch on the bottom of the unit off. Wait 30 seconds.

Plug in the
AC adapter into the wall socket.

Plug the AC
adapter into the 600.

Turn the
Memory Power switch on the bottom of the unit on. Wait 5 seconds.

Open the
unit’s lid and find the keys labeled BKSP, ALT, LABEL, and POWER.

Press and
hold down the keys in this order: BKSP,
ALT, LABEL, and POWER. (In the end, all
four keys will be pressed down at the same time.) Wait 2 seconds.

Release the
POWER key.

Release
BKSP, ALT, and LABEL keys.

Congratulations! You have just ‘cold started’ your 600!
All of the data files have been erased -
they were garbage anyway, trust me - and the System Manager screen appears.

Under
normal conditions, simply pressing the power key will turn the 600 on and
off. This is called a ‘normal start’
and will not affect any files in memory.

But life,
so often, is not always good even when it starts off normal. Sometimes the Tandy 600 experiences bad
things like lockups and garbage on the screen. (Shocking for a Microsoft operating system and software circa 1985, to
be sure.) To combat this problem you
must first, ask yourself, “Do I lead a charmed existence?” If the answer is
really and truly, “Yes,” then you
will be all right. (Some of you who falsely believe that you live a
charmed existence are in for a rude awakening.)

Unfortunately
for you, the 600 has undergone some kind of catastrophe that has left its memory jumbled, files corrupted, pointers dulled,
and ports stuffed! Whatever the problem, there are three solutions:

First,
perform a ‘warm start’ by holding down the BREAK key - that’s SHIFT & PAUSE
- then press and release the POWER key. Release the BREAK key. You might
be rewarded with a return to the System Manager screen. ‘Warm starts’ also recover any memory not
recovered when a file is deleted. Just in case, save everything and
perform a cold start.

If the
‘warm start’ leaves you cold, press the Reset button on the front, left side of
the 600. This usually doesn’t help; but
if the System Manager screen appears, you’re bound to feel better. Now,
save everything and perform a cold start just in case.

Both the
‘warm start’ and the Reset will leave your files intact. But if they do not work, your only option is
to go for a ‘cold start,’ which will reset the 600 to its ‘out of the box’
condition and erase all your files.

To avoid
the problem that follows a ‘cold start,’ follow a simple Golden Rule of
Computing, “Save your work. Backup
early and often.”

The LPT1:
device in Handheld Basic will automatically add a carriage return and a line
feed after every eighty characters whether we want it to or not. The GW-Basic WIDTH command was not
implemented in HH-Basic. This prevents
HH-Basic from printing the full width of "wide carriage" printers, or
the full width in compressed mode. It
also prevents the proper printing of bit image graphics, due to the two
"extra bytes of data" being added every eigthy bytes.

Fortunately,
the solution is not terribly complex. Open a disk or memory file for
output as 1. Then replace LPRINT with
PRINT#1, placing the "printed" output in that file. When all of the "printed" material
is in the file, exit to the System Manager. Use the Copy command to copy the file to PRN.
It should print to the width that you wanted. As a final note... Copying a file to the printer can print any file.

The 600
screen is best viewed with a broad overhead light source such as the ceiling
lighting found in many offices, however our homes aren't lit that way and we go
through all kinds of contortions trying to read the screen with our home
lighting. I've found that a piano lamp,
the type that extends over the sheet music, works best for me. The base sets on the top of the 600 behind
the screen and extend above the screen at just the right angle for easy
viewing.

Often I
call CompuServe long distance and I may not want the call to be billed to the
phone I'm using. In my phonebook file
there is an entry-- COMPSVECARD with ph# 0(the # of the node I'm accessing)++++(then my calling card
number). The + sign is a one second
delay. 4 seconds is about right for most local telephone switches, but you may
need to experiment if local switch is older. Then write a script file and
connect using COMPUSVECARD for auto logon.

If you are
beginning to get a lot of files and those 8 letter file names just don't jog
your memory enough, then try this: use COPY (filename) to CON (console). This works like the TYPE command in DOS.
Use [CTRL]S to pause to scrolling and SHIFT
BREAK to quit. This works on text files and WORD files (disregarding to
"garbage" at the beginning), however don't bother with BASIC or PLAN
files unless you're just looking for a little excitement.

It may seem
like you have to completely reenter a command or cell formula, but whoa,
there's an easier way. Say for example,
you want to change the SET WAKE FUNCTION to enter a new date. Tab to the date
entry, the entire current setting will be in reverse, press F10 the cursor will
go to the end of the entry, now press F9 or F7 and "backup" to
whatever you want to change. After
entering the changes then use <shift del> keys to erase to the right of
the cursor. This works in all WORKS and
WORD command lines, and with the Edit function in CALENDER, FILE and PLAN.

1. Go Terminal and change only the Parity from
EVEN to ZERO. As soon as you hit ENTER
after this choice, your CompuServe settings will change, so that now most
letters will be preceded by one or more of these symbols ~~~ ( produced by
CTRL+= while off line ,in Edit.) This will still be legible, and CIS will still
respond to your keyboard.

2. Now press CTRL+C enough times to stop this
abnormal display.

3. Press SHIFT + ESC, M, to get to your
settings.

4. TAB 3 times to word length 7 and press SPACE
to go to 8.

5. TAB once to go to Parity EVEN. Space twice
to change EVEN to NONE.

6. Press ENTER to return to Telcom menu.

7. Press C to resume connection.

8. Make whatever choice needed to resume the
flow after the CTRL C interrupt. If you used CTRL S to stop the flow, you may
need to use CTRL Q to resume.

CIS will
now continue but will be legible and normal looking. If you now sign off or
continue, CompuServe, before continuing, will ask you if you wish to keep these
settings or have them apply only to this one time use of CompuServe.

You are now
in 8 bit. This will enable you to read/download 8 bit material in the library,
although you will not be able to use it unless you have the facilities. So far
as I know, you cannot upload pre-prepared messages in 8 bit.

If you
leave your CIS Terminal at ZERO and your Modify settings at 8N, the next time
you log on to CompuServe, you will get something like:

Ho<taNa0e:
U<eraD:

It's the
usual sign on, in disguise. This is because CompuServe always signs on in 7E.
But it will accept your responses in 8 bit, and as soon as it receives your ID
number it will switch to 8 bit. Then everything will be normal except a line
feed may lost at the instant of switchover, so the password request may
continue on the same line.

You can
write a script that starts in 7E and changes to 8N, by entering a second line
of Modify settings after your I.D number, these for 8N.

To get out
of 8 bit, reverse the process. Go terminal and change ZERO to EVEN. Stop the
symbols that follow as in steps 2 and 3 while you change Modify to 7E.

The
technical reason that you see this garbage when your computer is at 8 and the
host is at 7, is that your computer reads the first seven bits correctly as
either 0 or 1, as they are transmitted. Then it is still waiting for bit number
8, while the host, having delivered 7, goes on to the next character. Your computer will then misread something as
the bit number 8 it is waiting for. If it sees something it interprets as 0,
then the character is unchanged. But if it adds a 1 to the 7 bits it already
has, it changes the symbol into one higher on the list by a count of 128.
(Manual pages 257 - 264).

The other
way, when your computer is in 7 and the host is in 8, your computer sometimes
interprets the extra information that it is not set up to receive as an extra
character, which it reads as Decimal #126 on the list (page 260).

If you
inherit a long document with line feeds after every line, but they are not
where you want them for a re-shaping of the document, here is one method of
removing line feeds (or ‘pi’ signs) from a document, Tandy 600 Portable.

1. If you wish to retain paragraphs, while
stripping all other line feeds, go through the document and mark the beginning
of each paragraph with a symbol such as a triangle. The keys for this are
CTRL+P. This will provide a marker, which will not be stripped, so that you can
re-insert the paragraphs later. (I just found out that that triangle produces a
line feed in the Forum editor).

2. Starting with a file in word, Copy it to a
disk file.

3. Verify successful copy by Copying the disk
file to Console for a brief inspection. You should see symbols before the text
appears.

4. Delete the original Word file if you need
the space.

5. Open a new Word file.

6. Merge the Disk file into this new Word file.
This should produce about 60 to 80 lines of symbols and spaces, followed by the
text. The text appears stripped of all formatting except spaces.

7. Find the beginning of the original text, and
place the cursor there. Ignore spurious
repetitions of the text mixed in with the symbols.

8. Press F6 to enable extend. Press the left
arrow and hold it to block in the area from the start of the text to the left
end of the display. Then press and hold the up arrow to block in the entire
display of symbols, all the way back to the start.

9. Press ESC, then D to delete the symbols. You
will need 5000 bytes or more available to do this in one shot. Otherwise, do
steps 8 and 9 in two or more sections, removing the symbols in blocks at a
time. Delete SCRAP later.

You now
have a document in Word stripped of all previous formatting except spaces,
which you may now re-format however you choose, using ESC,F,D. (This file now has the normal Word
formatting, like any word file, which is now holding it in whatever position
you choose.)

For short
documents it may be simpler to just run the cursor down the left side of the
display and press DEL at each line.

The Tandy
600 portable computer Owner's Manual does not mention how to send formatting
codes to the printer; i.e., underlining, changing fonts, etc. Yet that does not mean that it cannot be
done. I have found an easy way to send
any code (including ESCape sequences to most printers) with any Tandy 600
built-in application. All you need is
your printer manual and Appendix D - ASCII Character Codes from the Tandy 600
Owner's Manual. For the purposes of
this document, I will talk about sending codes to an Epson printer. This method has also been used successfully
on an IBM Proprinter, and with limited success on the CGP-220 Ink Jet printer.

Sending
non-ESCape codes to any printer is very easy. If you want the printer switched to the compressed mode, for example,
look in your printer manual for the code. It can be in either decimal or hexadecimal.
The code for Epson printers is decimal 15. Now looking in Appendix D of the 600 manual,
the Key Top Character for decimal 15 is CTRL-O (the letter O, not the number
zero.) Keep in mind that case is
significant, so press the CAPS LOCK key for a capital O. Pressing CTRL-O with the CAPS LOCK on does not
produce the same code as pressing SHIFT-CTRL-o, so make sure and use the CAPS
LOCK key. Wherever you want the printer
in the compressed mode, press CTRL-O. You will see a "star" symbol on the screen, but it will not be
printed. The code for turning off the
compressed mode is decimal 18, which translates to CTRL-R. Pressing CTRL-R produces an "up-down
arrow" on the screen. That's all
there is to it.

Sending
ESCape code sequences are a little more complicated, but not much. As you know, the ESCape key on the Tandy 600
stops whatever you are doing and sends the cursor to the menu line. Therefore, you cannot just press the ESCape
key to send an ESCape code to the printer. The code for ESCape is decimal 27.
I have found that an ESCape code can be sent to most printers by adding
decimal 128 to the decimal 27, producing decimal 155. Decimal code 155 is produced by pressing SHIFT-ALT-4.
While holding down the SHIFT and ALT keys,
press the number four key on the top row of the keyboard. The symbol produced on the screen is the
cent sign. Then you can follow this by
whatever other codes are necessary to get the job done. Turning on underlining with the Epson printer, for example, is accomplished with
ESC-hyphen-1. To do that with the Tandy
600, type SHIFT-ALT-4, then the hyphen, then the number one. You will see the cent sign followed by the
hyphen and the number one on the screen, yet they will not be printed. Turning off underlining is ESC-hyphen-0, so
you type SHIFT-ALT-4, then the hyphen, then the number zero. I was able to produce all 160 different
typestyles with the Epson printer using my Tandy 600.

This method
of sending ESCape codes does not work with my CGP-220 Ink Jet printer. Apparently it does not like the decimal 155
for the ESCape code. You will just have
to try this method and see if it will work with your particular printer. As I said earlier, it does work for Epson
and IBM printers.

By the way,
these codes work with all built-in applications, not just Word. It is very useful to turn on the compressed
mode for spreadsheet applications under Plan, for example.

The only
drawback I have found is that these codes take up space on the screen, which
can upset your margins. For example, to
start and stop underlining on one line takes a total of six characters. Even though those six characters will not be
printed, they probably have caused the last word on the line to be wrapped to
the next line, leaving a right margin that is more ragged than usual. This problem will essentially prevent you
from justifying any paragraph which has one of these extended print formatting
sequences.

If you are
changing print pitch (i.e., going from pica to expanded, compressed, or elite),
you might want to put the codes on the line prior to the line where you want
the codes to take effect.

The problem
is a little more severe in Plan. Since
the printer does not print those formatting codes, the cells that are to the
right of print formatting codes do not line up with the rest of the columns. A little trial-and-error experimenting with
moving the text further to the right within a cell will line up everything when
it is printed.

In
conclusion, you can send nearly any code that you choose to the printer. You can underline, boldface, or change the
pitch. Even though Tandy decided not to
put the fullest or latest implementation of Microsoft Word into the Tandy 600,
I think that it is an excellent word processor for a portable computer. It is not just another text editor.

The
following section contains ownership information, how to contribute and submit
articles for publication, a tip of the pen to those who have come before in
Tandy 600 land, and where the Tandy 600 software archive is. Oh, there is something about the author,
too. Not too much though...

The current Tandy 600 FAQ with color pictures can be found somewhere on the DigitalDinos
website, www.digitaldinos.com. The text
version will be placed in the comp.sys.tandy newsgroup on the rare occasion. While not cited at every instance, the
defended, copyrighted works of others is respected and appear in this document
only under the “Fair Use” doctrine. Readers of this document are required to give such copyright holders the
same deference. Aside from previously
copyrighted material appearing under “Fair Use,” this version of the Tandy 600
FAQ is owned, copyrighted, and released as freeware by DigitalDinos who makes
no guarantee of its fitness to task, seeks no compensation for it, nor
warranties it in any way, and
requires all others providing it in any way to make it available for free.
Use of this FAQ is strictly at the users own risk and peril. (See “Disclaimer,” under “Introduction”
above.) Should DigitalDinos cease
operation, this FAQ will immediately become public domain to be incorporated
into the next Tandy 600 FAQ, should there ever be one. This FAQ may be distributed, quoted, and linked
to providing that its content remains unmodified, proper credit is given, and
no profit is generated. Do not link to
the document itself on the DigitalDinos website, link to www.digitaldinos.com
as the location of this FAQ is subject to change.

While some
care has been taken while creating this FAQ, there are bound to be errors! This is where you come in.
If you discover an error, please notify the
author with a correction and it will be evaluated, edited, and put into the
next FAQ. (Maybe it will even be tested
before inclusion. Maybe...)

This FAQ
certainly does not cover all aspects of the Tandy 600. If you have a submission for this FAQ,
please contact the author to have it evaluated, edited, and maybe even included
in the next revision. (It might even be
tested as well.)

Contributions
to the Tandy 600 FAQ effort are greatly appreciated. The author is currently looking for public domain and freeware
software, a working Heath Zenith ZP-150 (a.k.a. Zenith ZP-150) with
documentation, Club 600
newsletters, and rights to republish everything we find and own to the general public as either public domain or copyrighted but free. (One can dream,
can't they?) While the author certainly
can't pay you anything for them, as this is a labor of love, he'll gladly pay
for the shipping. Just let him know
it’s coming ahead of time, ok? :)

Updates
are made on a specific “whenever the author gets around to it” schedule which isn’t
likely to change unless the author becomes independently wealthy by hard work, inheritance,
winning the
lottery, or a combination of all of the former. The most current
version of this FAQ - complete with cool pictures - is available somewhere on
the DigitalDinos website, www.digitaldinos.com.

It would be
remiss of this FAQ’s author to not thank those who have come before and
contributed to Tandy 600's vast (?) body of knowledge.

First to
Larry Kollar and Roger "Merch" Merchberger. Larry is the author of the Tandy 600 FAQ last published in comp.sys.tandy
on 12/02/1996 which brought together
his and other's experiences in one place. Merch tended the Tandy 600
software archive for many many years. Without his diligence, many Tandy 600
programs would have been lost to the electronic ether long ago. Thank you
gentlemen, wherever you are! :)

Second to Gary J. Weber who is maintaining the Tandy 600
archive on his site The Web
8201 Project. The site is dedicated to supporting the NEC PC-8201A and
PC-8300 (and TRS-80 Model 100 & 102, Olivetti M-10, Kyocera KC85) laptops.

Third, many individual
"Thank-Yous" to the countless number of authors of the CompuServe and comp.sys.tandy newsgroup messages over the years relating their personal
experiences and retelling facts about the Tandy 600. Significant portions of the original FAQ and therefore some of
this one has been drawn from those messages. Do not under any circumstances believe that the contact information for
any of these authors is current or even correct! It was taken from old messages to attribute the work to the
person. Really old messages... We're talking really old, OLD messages here!

And where
would this FAQ be without a reading of the manual for the Tandy 600? Even though it has some errors, it’s still
an invaluable reference. A “Thank You”
to its unknown author is also gratefully offered.

Finally. Last - but certainly not least - a big round
of thanks to you the reader for being here. Whether you are seeking out answers or just reminiscing, this FAQ
wouldn't be the same without you! :)

By day,
Thomas McLaren is a mild mannered senior IT professional (project manager, business analyst, software
architect, technical writer, and occasional programmer) and landed peasant who scratches out a very modest living employing almost exclusively
Microsoft technologies, especially .Net enabled ones, despite his rapidly
addling brain. Occasionally by night,
he operates DigitalDinos at www.digitaldinos.com
where his classic computing
hobby comes alive. (Or at least makes a
hopeless attempt at paying for itself.) Way back in late 1986 bitten by the 600 bug, he traded a complete TRS-80
Model 100 32K setup with the original 100K PDD, thermal printer, lots of software, case, cables,
books, and DVI for a Tandy 600. Since
that time, he has worn out - or been remiss in properly taking care of - at
least two other Tandy 600s. In late
2002, he revamped this FAQ mostly to help himself remember how the heck to get
the Word files he created from 1987 - 1992 from the Tandy 600 to his PC so he
could archive them, put the Tandy 600 into long term storage, and get on with
petting his 95 pound German Shepherd mix dog, Sheba.

An
interesting side note is that he also worked for Radio Shack during the
incredibly short time span that was the Tandy 600's heyday, which seemed a lot
longer back then due to 12-hour days and few - if any - weekends off!! (Not that he’s still bitter about that...)
Since he actually used the Tandy 600, he was
able to sell more and more of them as the price kept falling like a rock in a
really, big hurry. And to his former
Radio Shack customers reading, clawing, fighting their way through this murky,
technical prose desperate for answers and finding none, he is truly, really,
deeply sorry; but, he simply must go and pet the dog now.